Cruising the Alpine Loop

Our Saturdays are quickly filling up, so we made a quick trip to the Uintas to see the beautiful fall colors. About half of the trees had started to change. I just loved seeing all of the yellow everywhere.

Special note: this picture was taken while the photographer was standing on her seat (in her car) and out of the car's sunroof. Nice. My husband had a moment of genius.

Of course, on the drive home Ava requested that we 1} get a picture of her in front of a tree 2} the said tree must not have any green leaves 3} the leaves must be purple. We tried our best.

Want to know the secret to getting Ava to smile for pictures? We take 2 pictures. The first one is of her smiling and in the second picture she gets to make a silly face.

Ava couldn't get enough of all of the prettiness outside. She even collected a few leaves to bring back to Nana. Can't wait till the leaves start changing on our block and we can start collecting more leaves.

Once home I had to continue our autumny day, so we made Pumpkin Spice Cookies. Ava kept sneaking little morsals of the dough while we were cooking. Which I totally supported because 1} she needs every calorie she can get 2} there are no raw eggs 3} pumpkin is packed with lots off good stuff. It's a super fruit? veggie? It's just awesome :)

Silly face trick works again. See above picture for proof :)

The finished result.

Tip: Before popping these babies in the oven, dip your finger in water and and smooth out the tops of the cookies. Otherwise your cookies will look like they have grown spikes.

Ava gives these cookies a thumbs up.

Happy Autumn!

Overheard between Ariel and Cinderella

Ariel (aka Josh) : I love to read.

Cinderella (aka Ava): You love to sing. You can't read underwater.

Poor Ariel. She uses a fork to brush her hair and now she can't even read :) By the way, love that Josh was such a good sport and agreed to play with Ava and her princess dolls.

Dont mess with Chuck

What is all you need?

{Ava's response to my singing}

Me: (Trying my best to pull off the chorus to All You Need Is Love by the Beatles)

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

Ava: That's not true, you need more.

{Ha ha ha. I'm so funny}

Love Miss Smartie Pants.

In the zone

The YoZone that is. I would go there every night if I could. But I've had to settle for just 3 times in the past 9 days. To top it off, their newest flavor is Pumpkin Spice. Heavenly. I wonder how expensive it would be to install my very own frozen yogurt machine in our house.

It's been awhile

It's been awhile since I have been able to capture one of Reid's adorable smiles on camera. I'm just not fast enough to keep up with this kid. But here he is, all proud of himself for being able to sit in the back of the tractor. We just love him to pieces.


On the Reid news front, he's talking more and more every single day. Which means he is also voicing his opinion more and more. He can say mo (more), boo (book - can't get enough of this right now), my (mine - hmmm, wonder why he learned that one), doggy (every animal is a doggy), peeeese (please), and he still won't say Ava (isn't that the easiest sibling name ever, and he still won't even try it...little rascal!). He also knows a few animals sounds like moo, whoo whoo, baaa, and neigh.

In Ava news, she's still loving preschool. Her favorite class is music. She's learning the letter T this week and is a pro at crossing those Ts. During cooking class this week they made Tortilla Soup (love how they coordinate all the classes with the letter they are learning that week). Anyways, I asked Miss Picky if she tried some. She said "I just ate the chips, but the big kids ate it all up." There are only 3 years olds in her class. So who are these "big kids". But most of her classmates are a head taller than Ava. So she calls them all the "big kids".


She still gets excited to do her homework. Gotta love that I can use homework as a bribe. How long do you think that will last?

We were in, and then we were out

Thankfully one thing that we didn't have to sacrifice with the move to Utah was getting to eat at In N Out. I think a lot of the college kids from CA would fullheartedly agree. I am always surprised by how long the lines are at this burger joint. But I would just like to note that the fries, burgers and shakes taste just as good as the picture looks.

Just a little icing

Looked out the window while preparing dinner and saw this. I know, you were totally disgusted, just like me. It's only the first week of October people!

A few of you might be a little confused. Here's a closer look at Mt. Timp. Yep, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you, it's snow. S-N-O-W. Ack. Is it weird to be a little scared for the arrival of snow? Those wussy CA winters have really made me freaked out to start driving in the fluffy stuff again. I keep telling myself that something that looks that pretty atop a mountain can't be all that bad.